[EM] Advocacy of Kemeny's method

[mrouse1 at mrouse.com]

Steve Eppley wrote:

>Mike R wrote:
>  
>
>>Steven B wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Does this group, or anyone here, 
>>>advocate Kemeny's method?
>>>      
>>>
>>I personally like it the best of all the methods 
>>I've seen, except for the "NP-hard" part. I'll 
>>advocate it without reservation when quantum 
>>computers become available. :)
>>    
>>
>
>The obvious question is, why prefer Kemeny's method?
>What criteria does it satisfy that other methods fail
>that are more important than the criteria other methods
>satisfy that Kemeny fails?
>  
>

I like Kemeny-Young is because it has many of what I consider "must 
have" voting characteristics (Condorcet and Extended Condorcet, 
especially), plus it removes voting cycles, is resistant to voting 
manipulation, and it orders all of the candidates (useful when more than 
one candidate can win or when an elected candidate cannot serve).

Of course, like any voting method there are ways to get illogical 
outcomes and it can ignore ballot orders that are "illogical" compared 
to the majority (this is how it resists manipulation, so it's a mixed 
blessing/curse), and it is extremely difficult to compute for many 
voters/candidates. According to 
http://condorcet.org/emr/methods.shtml#Kemeny-Young , it's also 
vulnerable to compromising, burying, and crowding.

It's not a religious belief, though (grin), so I'm willing to change my 
mind in the face of convincing evidence. If there is a method you 
prefer, you might show me an example of how Kemeny gets it wrong 
compared to your favorite method. Or if you like, you can let me know 
what method you think is better and I can try to come up with an example 
where Kemeny-Young is superior (though I'm at work <on lunch> now so it 
may be awhile, and remember it's an NP-hard problem so no fair piling on 
the candidates/voters).

Mike Rouse
mrouse at internetcds.com

PS I would support legislation for any Condorcet-compliant method if it 
came up for a vote, since the probable difference between methods that 
satisfy that are probably a few percent at best.

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